“Ah, would yer!” he shouted, tearing the rope away from me. “Comes up here, mates, bold as brass, and says it’s his’n.”
I felt more enraged and mortified now than alarmed, and I cried out:
“It is our rope, and that boy stole it; and I’ll tell the police.”
“Oh! yer will, will yer?” cried my captor. “We’ll see about that. Here, what money have yer got?”
“I’ve only enough for my breakfast,” I cried defiantly. “Give me my rope and let me go.”
“Oh yes, I’ll let yer go,” he cried, as I wrestled to get away, fighting with all my might, and striving to reach the rope at the same moment.
“Look out, Ned,” said one of the men at the door, grinning. “He’ll be too much for yer;” and the other uttered a hoarse laugh.
“Ah, that he will!” cried the big fellow, letting me get hold of the rope, and, tightening his grasp upon my collar, he kicked my legs from under me, so that I fell heavily half across the coil, while he went down on one knee and held me panting and quivering there, perfectly helpless.
The boy made another dart forward, and I saw the woman catch at him by the head, but his shortly-cropped hair glided through her hands, and he would have reached me had not the man kicked out at him and made him stop suddenly and watch for another chance.
“Who’s got a knife?” growled the man now savagely as he turned towards the two fellows at the door; “I’ll soon show him what it is to come here a-wanting to steal our cart-ropes. Chuck that there knife here.”